1. Thermomechanical responses of microfluidic cantilever capture DNA melting and properties of DNA premelting states using picoliters of DNA solution.
- Author
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Jiang, Keren, Khan, Faheem, Thomas, Javix, Desai, Parth Rakesh, Phani, Arindam, Das, Siddhartha, and Thundat, Thomas
- Subjects
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MICROFLUIDICS , *CANTILEVERS , *DNA , *THERMOPHYSICAL properties , *TRANSITION temperature - Abstract
Melting or thermal denaturation of a DNA molecule and the different bubble-rich, premelting DNA states that serve as a precursor for DNA thermal denaturation are vital events in DNA thermophysics. In this study, we employ cantilever-based sensing to firstly pinpoint the occurrence of DNA melting and identify the temperature Tm characterizing the melting. Very importantly, this sensing is carried out with an extremely small volume (∼picoliters) of DNA sample with the cantilever demonstrating an extremely high sensitivity on the order of mJ / g ⋅ K corresponding to pico-Joules of energy input. Secondly, this same large sensitivity of the cantilever is used to quantify the hitherto unknown thermophysical properties of the bubble-rich DNA premelting states. In fact, for both the melting and premelting states, the cantilever provides a framework to calculate the specific heat capacity and the storage and loss moduli of the cantilever-DNA-solution system, thereby establishing a platform for quantifying DNAs' thermo-mechanical behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
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